Madam Speaker, in fulfillment of the Constitutional requirement under article 101 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, I am here to deliver the State of the Nation Address, 2018.

Greetings to all Ugandans and congratulations on reaching the mid-year of 2018. In the Book of Galatians, Chapter 6, Verse 7, it says:“Be not deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows”

By financial year 2005/2006, our tax revenue collections per annum, were standing at Shs2.23 trillion. At that time, an understanding had been reached between some branches of the government and the development partners to the effect that the government of Uganda should concentrate on handling the recurrent budget (salaries, etc.), while the development partners would handle the development budget (roads, electricity, the railways, etc). That arrangement was already landing us in problems. Towards the end of 2005 and as we were heading towards the elections of 2006, the country was plunged into the crisis of what came to be called “Load-shedding” ─ the acute shortage of electricity.

Since 1986, only the British had helped us with the repair and upgrade of the Owen Falls dam from the miserable 60mgws to 180mgws. Since the economy had grown 6.6 times since the low level of 1986, those 180 mgws was no longer enough. Yet, as our Baganda people say, “Omugo oguli ku murirano, tegugoba engo” ─ (the stick in your neighbour’s house cannot help you to fight off a leopard). It is too far to help you. That is when I sat down with my NRM colleagues in the Cabinet and the Caucus, in a retreat in Statistics House, to discuss this very serious problem.
I proposed to the two fora the step of taking on the development budget of the country and also focusing on the roads and electricity. The budget for the roads was raised from Shs398 billion to Shs3, 442 billion. It now stands at Shs4, 786 billion per annum. The budget for electricity was raised from Shs178 billion to Shs2, 858 billion. It now stands at Shs2.77 trillion per annum.

As a consequence, we now have tarmac roads to almost all the corners of Uganda: Nimule; Oraba; Musingo; Vurra; Lwakhakha soon; Malaba; Busia; Busuunga, beyond Bundibugyo; Mpondwe; Mutukula; Muroongo on the Kagyera river; Mirama hill; Katuna; Cyanika and Bunagana. Radiating from Kampala, tarmac roads are now connecting all those points. The distance between Cyanika and Oraba is 1,048 Kms (655miles), all of it connected by a tarmac road, from Kisoro district to Koboko.

With electricity, all the district headquarters, except for Kaabong and Buvuma, have now been reached by the electricity wires. The generation capacity of Uganda will soon be 2,216 megawatts, once Isimba, Karuma and many of the mini-hydros are completed.
Much of this work has been done by the Uganda Government money. 58 per cent of the roads, for instance, have been done or are being done by the Government of Uganda money. We are, of course, also grateful to the development partners for their contributions. Some of the roads have been done with their support.

“Otamanya ishekooko, ati eriibwa n’ebyooya” (the uninformed, thinks that people eat the Turkey with its feathers). Many people do not know how the economy grows, although many pass themselves out as “experts”. These investments in the roads and electricity, along with the earlier decision (2001) of strengthening the Army, are beginning to result in the resumption of our usual high growth rates which had been interfered with by the shortage of electricity and, more recently, the drought. This year, for instance, the economy will grow by 5.8 per cent per annum. This will rise to over 7 per cent per annum by the financial year 2019/2010.
Indeed, a Centre at Harvard, in the USA, recently predicted that Uganda will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world by 2026 or thereabout. I was not surprised by that prediction. What surprised me was that Uganda would be the first or the second fastest growing economy in the whole world.
The fact that our economy would grow fast, however, was not surprising for me given the deliberate steps we have taken to lay the foundation.

When we say that the economy is growing reasonably well, we mean that the four sectors are growing well. Indeed, industry grew at 6.2 per cent per annum, services at 7.3 per cent, ICT at 7.9 per cent and agriculture at 3.2 per cent. As you can see, it is only agriculture that is still growing slowly. Fortunately, we have or will soon have the necessary boosters for agriculture. These will be the use of fertilizers by more Ugandan farmers than at present and the farmers will use more irrigation. In the coming financial year, the government will work on the following irrigation schemes using the government budget:

In order to roll-out a global irrigation system for the whole country, we are encouraging industrialists to set up assembly or manufacturing plants for solar-powered water pumps. Some of these pumps and water conveyance systems will be used in government funded irrigation schemes. Others, however, will be used by the farmers at their own cost. I encourage all the capable farmers to, at their own cost, go into irrigation.

With the building of our phosphate fertilizer plant in Tororo, Uganda, which at 2.5kgs per hectare has one of the lowest rates of fertilizer use, will now stir itself up to use more fertilizers. We are looking for an additional investor to blend the phosphates with nitrogen and potassium in order to formulate NPK (Nitrogen, phosphates and potassium).
With the use of NPK, production will go up by 30 per cent. With higher rates of agricultural growth, the overall rate of growth will go up. Within the industrial rate of growth, I would like to single-out the sector of construction. This grew by 12.5 per cent annually. This is not surprising given the respective efforts of the government and the private sector in the areas of road and houses construction.

All this is happening before we implement our invigorated effort to ensure import substitution. You remember last year, I told you how rich Ugandans and other Africans are, already. In the case of Uganda, we spend about US $7 billion a year in terms of imports.

Importing what? Importing the shoes, clothes, carpets, textiles, furniture units, pharmaceuticals, electronic equipments, perfumes, soaps, wines, cars, pikipikis (motorcycles), etc., etc. Since some time ago, we have told our people that they can manufacture or process most of these here. That is how we have started the process of supporting the youth and the women groups that are already engaged in those activities or are about to be engaged in those activities.
This will save our foreign exchange, create more money for us, but also create jobs for our youth. Hence, many of our unemployed youth can be transformed into property owners, job creators and also employ themselves.

Since we talked about this in last year’s State of the Nation Address, 4,525 girls have already been assisted to engage in: knitting, shoe-making, weaving, tailoring, bakery and embroidery, while six groups have been assisted in furniture-making and 10 in welding. As of now, these groups may be making items for import-substitution. In time, however, they will make items for exports.

While this effort is aimed at recruiting many of our youth from agriculture or from the urban informal sector (jua kali) into small scale industry activities, the bigger foreign and local investors have already helped us to attract and locate in Uganda 44,316 factories and 8,200 service companies. These employ 600,000 and 1.2 million people, respectively. Indeed, as you drive on Gulu road, as I did recently, or along Jinja road, you will see quite a number of new factories that have been built recently.
In the coming days, the Minister of Finance will announce the financial support we intend to give to the groups that wish to join the manufacturing in the form of the enhanced micro-finance efforts and the Innovation in addition to the Women Fund, the Youth Fund and Operation Wealth Creation Fund. With enough electricity, the improved roads and security, we are surer of success than we have ever been. Through enhanced micro-finance, we are going to solve one of the bottlenecks ─ absence of low-interest money for manufacturing.
The privatization of Commercial Banks failed to solve the problem of high interest-rates. We are going to solve it using the route of the enhanced micro-finance and the r boute of the more capitalized Uganda Development Bank (UDB). These institutions should be able to give loans to manufacturers, processors and commercial agriculture at interest rates of 12 per cent or thereabout per annum.

One of the stimuli for faster economic growth is the low cost of doing business in the economy. With the refinancing of Bujagali and a better deal for managing the transmission of electricity, we shall achieve the low cost of electricity per unit, added to the low cost of money mentioned above. That leaves the low cost of transport as our next target.

Although we have done so much on the roads, by the end of this financial year, (we shall have a total length of 6,027 kms that are tarmacked), the roads are only good for passengers. They travel comfortably and fast; sometimes, too fast for their own safety as we have seen with so many fatal accidents, recently. Nevertheless, cost for road transport remains high if you compare it with rail and water transport. God gave us the possibility of water transport with so many Lakes (Nalubaale, Mwitanzigye, Masyooro, Butuumbi-Rutshuru, and Kyoga) and Kiira (the River Nile). These are the Ugandan names for Lakes: Victoria, Albert, George and Edward. This potential is always there and, as we get investors, the potential will turn into capacity. That leaves the issue of the railway. We are going to build the Standard Gauge Railway. We are only continuing to refine the issues of cost and quality with the partners we are talking with.

Before I leave the subject of the economy, I cannot forget to talk about the commercialization of Agriculture, especially for the 68 per cent homesteads that are still in subsistence and that are a big source of our poverty. 68 per cent are not active in the economy and they are just by-standers. This has been one of the battles I have been fighting since 1966, for the last 52 years. I do not accept to live with neighbours that are stuck in poverty. I patiently educate them until they are able to join the gospel of wealth creation through production. I started the battle in the cattle corridor in 1966 ─ end of year.

With my late colleague, Mwesigwa – Black, we sensitized the nomadic Banyankore as to the need to become sedentary and, later, join the dairy industry. This effort, by 1995, in spite of the 20 years interruption on account of the political chaos in the country, had succeeded beyond our wildest imagination. In Kiruhura district alone, there are 6,000 dairy farmers, producing 800,000 litres of milk per day today. The total production of milk in Uganda went from 200 million litres to 2.5billion litres per annum, thereby liberating Uganda from depending on imported powdered milk and, actually, becoming an exporter of milk and milk products to the tune of US $130 million per annum.

Recently, on account of the laxity by the veterinary staff and also the carelessness of the farmers themselves, we have had the problem of tick resistance to acaricides. We shall, however, use science to defeat this problem. Our scientists are working on it.

Having confirmed that villagers can be enlightened into becoming commercial farmers in the dairy sector, during the whole of 1995, I travelled throughout the country and preached the gospel of wealth-creation. Unfortunately, many leaders are never bothered with substance of leadership. They spend a lot of time on Public Relations (PR) and no time on substance. The PR is attending church services, weddings, burials, etc. In the end, however, real mobilization is helping the people to solve the problem of wealth creation, jobs, health, and education for their children by directing them to wealth creation so that they can support the education of their children themselves, the infrastructure of roads and security.
Having shared my pilot project with the rest of the country, I was hopeful that my colleagues would take advantage of my experience. Some did. Recently, I invited the Inter-religious Council to visit some areas that have woken up: Ibaanda, Kiruhuura, Kalungu and Masaka. They were able to see for themselves that poverty in the rural areas can be defeated. The Ibaanda, Kalungu and Masaka areas had relied on coffee to defeat poverty. Kiruhuura had relied on dairy. There are other areas like Bundibugyo that are, unfortunately, being disturbed by the artificial issue of identity (Bakonjo vs Baamba – Babwisi). Otherwise, through cocoa, palm oil, coffee, vanilla and up-land rice, that area was becoming very prosperous.

As I was waiting for my colleagues to absorb the message of transformation, since I am always allergic to poverty among my neighbours, I launched directly managed programmes in the Kisozi area and Kawumu in Luwero. The President’s office is also running a number of Model Parishes. In Kisozi, I have 1700 homesteads in nine villages. As I speak, 1400 of the homesteads have joined the effort of commercial farming through coffee, bananas, beans, maize and zero-grazing of cattle. See annex I attached about the details. I, however, notice that the coffee yield and returns per acre are still low. I do not know why.

In the Masaka area, the yield per acre per annum is 2,700Kgs that bring in Shs18.9 million per annum. In the Kawumu area, the Mawale Parish has got 1,188 homesteads. Operation Wealth Creation (OWC) has handled 341 homesteads and State House has handled 292 homesteads. Information on Mawale and Nsanvu parishes is attached in annexes II. The leaders should be informed that this is the correct way of seeking durable popularity and not confining yourselves to Public Relation (PR) and spontaneity. The latter, in the end, will evaporate. The leaders and the CAOs must plan per parish to involve, in phases, eventually, all the homesteads.

One of the problems I have been informing the leaders about, including the community leaders, is the issue of land fragmentation through indisciplined inheritance practices. This will cause a big problem for the country if we do not copy what the Europeans did in order to guard against this phenomenon. The use of shares (emigabo) for inheritance is better than the physical fragmentation of land and property. Fortunately, science is developing so fast that we may, in future, not need soil to produce crops. In fact, somebody told me that soil was an inconvenience because it harbours crop diseases. That what is crucial is water, which we should do everything possible to protect. They call this hydroponics agriculture ─ crops without soil, but with fresh water. The political leaders, the cultural leaders, the religious leaders need to know that there are strategic issues we need to grasp clearly for the survival and prosperity of our people. Riding on an uninformed population is criminal.

As our industrialization is progressing, our Scientists are also making their own contribution. That is why we put in place the Innovation Fund. Quite a number of our Scientists have patents for industrial formulae. These include: Dr. Muranga, Dr. Kyamuhangire, Musasizi, the late Dr. Isharaza, Dr. Mukwaya, Dr. Kaahwa, etc., etc. One of the products being developed is the Kiira electric car. Our industrial sector, therefore, will not only depend on processing agricultural and minerals products. It will also benefit from the intellectual labour of our Scientists, out of their designs and fabrications, like the electric cars.

One of our Scientists Dr. Phillippa Ngaju Makobore, has developed an Electronically Controlled Gravity Feed Infusion Set (ECGF), a medical device designed to accurately administer intravenous (IV) fluids and drugs by controlling the rate of fluid flow based on feedback from a drop sensor. I congratulate all of them.

In order to invigorate our services sector, the Government will revive the Uganda Airlines. We have already booked slots for the manufacture of medium and long – distance planes. These will be able to handle the regional and inter-national routes. Ugandans have an itch in their feet. They like to travel, to Dubai, to China, etc. Besides, we have a large diaspora that run away during the bad times; they are too comfortable where they are and never bother to come back, permanently.

Nevertheless, they regularly travel back to see their families. Besides, we have the tourists and also the investment and business delegations. All these need convenient mode of travel from London, from Dubai or from a point in China. This is not to talk of regional destination – Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kigali, Bujumbura, Arusha, Juba, Khartoum, Kinshasa, Addis-Ababa, Cairo, Johannesburg, etc. Every year, Ugandans spend US $430million (Shs1.6 trillion) on air-travel. This is quite a heamorrhage that must stop, just as we are going to stop the haermorrhage occasioned by the phenomenon of medical tourism. This is going to India for medical treatment. This takes another US $1.3 million per year.

I hear so many people talk about the attainment of the middle-income status by Uganda. The main problem here is, actually, the problem of Uganda importing too much and exporting little. The GDP per capita today is US $776. To become a middle income country, you need, at least, US $1,006 per capita. This money is calculated in Dollars. Too much importing and too little exporting undermines the progress to a middle-income status. Therefore, Ugandans, please, buy Ugandan; travel Ugandan; health-wise, be treated in Uganda. The government will facilitate its part as outlines in this speech.

All I have said above is about the economy that is being developed to create wealth and jobs for the Ugandans as well as widening the tax base for the State of Uganda. At the same time, this bigger economy provides more goods and services for Uganda’s domestic consumption and for exports.

Your NRM, always looking ahead, has already negotiated and arranged with our brother and sister Africans to ensure the market integration of Africa (EAC, COMESA, CFTA), so as to provide capacity for the absorption of the greater supply of goods and services produced by the Ugandans awakened to realize their potential as we also buy from our brothers and sisters in Africa, as we all take advantage of the huge collective market of Africa. Besides the huge continental market we are creating with our African brothers, the NRM always never missing in action when it comes to African issues, we have also negotiated for third party market access to the USA, EU, Chinese, Japanese and Indian markets, in varying degrees. Hence, ladies and gentlemen, the NRM has addressed or is addressing all the factors that are necessary to open the gates to the Ugandans engaged in wealth and jobs creation. Let everybody, then, play his or her own part.

On the side of stability, Uganda had a lot of challenges even after the NRM took power. Eventually, by 2007, the UPDF totally defeated Kony, ADF, the other rebel groups and disarmed the Karimojong. Therefore, rural-based terrorism and banditry was totally defeated and we built military and intelligence capacity to ensure that Uganda will never be threatened by terrorists operating from the rural areas. The terrorists of ADF are still in Congo, preserved there by the UN and the Congo government. If, however, they were to re-enter Uganda, they would be promptly and decisively defeated.

Some of the terrorists of ADF as well as other criminal elements, seeing that they could not survive in the rural areas, infiltrated into the towns where we had not fully focused in terms of developing intelligence capacity. As a consequence, we had 7 Sheiks assassinated as well as Major Kiggundu, Joan Kagezi, AIGP Kaweesi and Susan Magara, of recent. These killings seem to have been linked with ADF. Other killings, like the women killed in the Entebbe – Wakiso areas, as well as the killings in the Masaka area on New Year’s Eve, were by local criminals using pangas.
With this new challenge, we put in place mechanism to build the intelligence gathering capacity in the towns and on the highways. We are about to round-off the building of that capacity.

Urban terrorism and crime will be defeated just as we defeated the rural terrorists. In the meantime, most of the killers of the women in the Entebbe – Wakiso areas as well as the killings in the Masaka area, have been arrested. One of the killers, Kiddawalime, was killed by the wanaichi and our Police Force. In particular, I want to commend Cadet ASP Twinomugisha Steven, a Police Officer that wrestled down the criminal and disabled him. With immediate effect, I promote him to the next rank. I also salute our grand-daughter, Nakyambadde, who, using the mobile telephone, summoned for help when the obnoxious Kiddawalime was about to start robbing her and was about to rape her.

With the permission of the Rt. Hon. Speaker, I will decorate them with the Jubilee medal, later. On the kidnappers and killers of Susan Magara, two were killed at Usaafi Mosque as they were trying to fight the Police and eight were arrested. Regarding the killings of Joan Kagezi, Moslem Sheikhs, AIGP Kaweesi and Major Kiggundu, 90 persons have been arrested and are now facing trial and those not yet arrested are still being hunted.
The ADF criminals in Congo will answer for the killings of our people even when they are hiding in Congo. Their only safety is for them to voluntarily surrender and seek for amnesty. I salute our brothers, the Tanzanians, for arresting and handing over to us Jamil Mukulu. He is now facing the Courts of Law.

The other issue that needs attention is the environment, especially the restoration of the wetlands, preserving the national forests, planting the new commercial forests, not cultivating along the River banks, not allowing cultivation within the 200 metres of the Lake shore and stopping soil erosion by using contours when cultivating in the mountain areas or on the hillsides. Cultivation or building in the wetlands (ebisharara, enfuujo-bisaaru, ntobazi-bitoogo) should stop.

We can economically use the wetlands better when we preserve them and only use the edges for fish ponds. The four fish-ponds, in half an acre of the Presidential farm at Kawumu in Luwero, bring in Shs64 million per year, according to Madam Nakyobe. This is the right way to use the wetlands so that the centre of the swamp regenerates, preserves water for us because we need it for irrigating the farms. Besides, the swamp grass known as ebigugu (Cyperus latiforia) is very good for mulching the gardens and banana plantations.

You cut and the grass grows again. God had arranged everything for Uganda ─ water, ebigugu, ebifuunjo for paper making (known as papyrus), fish in the wetlands, mud-fish (eshoonzi), etc. We can now use the edges (emiiga) for fish farming, get much more money and preserve our wetlands with all our other benefits. Moreover, the swamp vegetation also filters the water so that, by the time it goes into the Lakes and Rivers, it is free of silt. This preserves the Lakes and Rivers from silting and also preserves the quality of the water. When it comes to purifying water for consumption, it costs us less.

There is no part of Uganda where there is no branch of the government. There is a government at the district (elected and appointed), there is a government at the sub-county and there is a government at the parish (the Muruka chief). There is no good reason, therefore, why the President and the Central government should be harassed for this whole hierarchy of the structures not doing their job.

Therefore, I am going to write a directive in the form of a circular letter to all these galaxy of officials to ensure that all the services in their area are delivered properly. They should ensure that there are no ghosts in the Local Government Secondary and Primary Schools; that teachers teach; that there are drugs in the health centres; that the farmers follow the required agricultural practices; that the wetlands are not invaded; that the Lake shores are not cultivated; etc. The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) in the district is the Permanent Secretary of the Government in the district. All his workers, the Gombolola chiefs and the Miruka chiefs, should not allow anything to go wrong in the areas of their responsibility. I will create an Inspection Unit in my office ─ State House. If they go to an area and there is anything wrong, that official and the CAO will be held responsible.

I cannot fail to talk about mercenarism of the public officials and corruption of some of them. The mercenarism interferes with the patriotic attitude of the freedom fighters. People expect money for every little task. We could not have liberated this country if we did not have a high degree of altruism. This attitude of altruism must come back. As for the corrupt officials, I would like to inform the public that their only element of security is the acquaissance of the public by not reporting these criminals. Otherwise, there is no criminal, we cannot handle. Report any corruption you come across to this unit. It will comprise of Mr. James Tweheyo, Ms. Martha Asiimwe and Sister Akiror. They will give out their telephone numbers. What happened to the IGG? Why don’t the victims of corruption report those incidents to the office of the IGG? That was the purpose of that office; to protect the public from corrupt officials; to protect the investors against corrupt officials. The IGG should reflect on this. Are her staff credible? Why does the public not trust that institution? We need answers.

In order to help the Muruka chief monitor economic production activities and service delivery in his area, the government should give each one of them a bicycle. It is quiet and healthy for the chief to peddle around and inspect. The motor-cycles of the Gombolola chiefs should be replaced. The old ones, given out in the financial year 2007/2008, are too old by now.

In the area of Sports, Uganda is beginning to come up, again. The best sports performance by Ugandans was that of Akii Bua in the 400 metres hurdles of 1972 in the Munich Olympics.
Since the 1950s, I had been following the sports events and the achievements of our people. Etolu in Vancouver in 1954 in the high jump, Tom Kawere in boxing in Cardiff in 1959, Grace Seruwagi in boxing in 1960, etc., etc. Therefore, the recent star performances of the young sportsmen like Kiprotich, gold in the London Olympics of 2012, Kipsiro, gold in 2014 in Glasgow, Cheptegei in the recent Commonwealth games, etc., revive and re-inforce the good performance of the fore-runners of sports in modern Uganda. Yet, we have not yet put systematic efforts into sports beyond the peace brought to the country, the immunization of the young people, the UPE and USE as well as the absorption of the youth with talent into the disciplined forces of Uganda (Prisons, Police, UPDf, etc).
Let the Ministry of Health sensitize our people more on nutrition in early childhood and, when funds are available, more systematic annual schools and districts competitions to be able to identify talent early enough. The potential in Uganda is huge.

In the budget, the Minister of Finance will give more details about the plans for the economy. I wish to end this address by thanking Parliament for handling the following legislations during the last session:

In conclusion, I want to remind the listeners that Uganda is un-stoppable given what we have done in the field of: Army building; building the other security forces; in education; in health; the ICT backbone; the roads; electricity; in agricultural research for improved seeds, disease control and improved agro-practices; what we are planning to do to deal with the cost of money for borrowing; and the work already done on the issue of the continental market integration and access to third Party markets.
What remains to be done is build the Standard Gauge Railway with the branches to Kasese, Kakitumba and South Sudan. I did not talk about the oil and gas because all the work is already done. It is just implementation that is remaining. The oil revenues will, obviously help us to fund our infrastructure and innovation programmes. The future is bright. Let us tighten discipline.

Madam Speaker, It is my pleasure to declare the 3rd Session of the 10th Parliament open.

I thank you very much and hope that the coming Session will be fruitful.